Ghent, Belgium, crisis shelter limits stays to five nights in two weeks

Karel, who works at one of the local government’s homeless shelters in Ghent, Belgium, said that after he started the job he kept finding people he had never noticed before. “They lived in the same city as me, but I never found it,” he said. Before taking the position, he had worked at a clinic, where he began to wonder what became of the people he met there after they left the hospital. He later returned to school to study social work, with a thesis on the role of shelters in helping homeless people. After graduating, he began working with a wide range of homeless people.

Karel and his colleague Koen, who had worked at the same shelter for six years, described some of the people they had met. Karel recalled a Belgian man who told him he had once owned a hotel resort in Indonesia and had a wife and child there. He said that after an accident, he developed a mental health problem and was abandoned by his family in Indonesia. Koen described a man from Scotland who was clean and well-presented and who said that a family tragedy in an accident had led him to leave home. He said he did not want to return to Scotland, even though close friends were willing to help him, because he wanted to put the loss behind him. Koen emphasized that staff must listen carefully. “You must always listen to them, and then find out that they are not what you think they are,” he said. [Proverbs 18:17]

According to the account, the shelter serves about 1,500 different people each year. About 75 percent come in fewer than five times a year, and the source says most of them need urgent help. The remaining 25 percent come more often. The source divides this group into two categories: people who cannot obtain identity documents, and people with multiple complex physical and mental health conditions, including severe dementia and addiction.

Ghent has about 250,000 residents. The city has 65 emergency shelter beds in summer and 105 in winter. Karel said the shelter has grown from 12 beds to 40 beds, and he said that growth shows the situation is getting worse. The source reports that a rise in real estate costs is one of the major reasons for the increase in the number of homeless people.

The shelter is funded by the Government of Ghent. It was previously an older building with 12 beds, and it was renovated in 2013 into a 40-bed facility. The source describes the facility as clean and functional, with few decorative features, and says it can feel more like a small hospital or prison. Karel said the staff intentionally kept it that way because it is a crisis shelter. “We don’t want these people to be able to rely on this kind of help,” he said. “They have to find a self-sufficient road, and this must work with the social welfare institutions.”

The shelter limits each person to no more than five nights of sleeping there within two weeks. Guests must also show that they have sought help from a social welfare facility within that same two-week period.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Mandarin Chinese)